The third of five blogs tying into Bython’s series of marketing whitepapers.

Spreading a wide net not capturing the number and level of leads and opportunities you want? Then try something different. Narrow your focus.

Instead of targeting massive numbers of potential prospects, pinpoint a few companies and one or two of their executives you feel will benefit the most from your products. Then launch a series of very personalized campaigns aimed just at them.

Treat them as a market of one.

This is called B2B account-based marketing. ABM, for short. It’s a high-performance strategy designed to target potential clients with tightly-concentrated precision. It identifies influential individual prospects or customer accounts rather than pursuing larger groups.

This will not only help you nurture the value of each prospect, but also drastically change the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

How do you get started?

First off, in order for ABM to succeed, it is critical that marketing and sales start working together as one entity. Or, as Sangram Vajre, CMO and co-founder of Terminus, calls it: “Smarketing.”

They must combine strategies and efforts to target clearly defined accounts. Then learn everything possible about the potential targets. Habits. Behaviors. Challenges. Experiences.

Next, engage them every step of the way — from first contact to signing the contract — by delivering marketing materials and messaging that really matters to the client. Use the data gathered during the research phase to write tailored messages that engage them by offering solutions that will fulfill their specific needs.

Then evaluate, analyze, measure key metrics, and share this data with each other in order to adjust direction, if necessary, before launching the next series of campaigns.

What are the true benefits of account-based marketing?

• Bypass unqualified general leads by pre-qualifying your prospective targets through extensive research and identification.
• Save time and money by not wasting efforts on mass campaigns that only yield a small percentage of viable leads.
• It’s simpler to analyze and measure the performance of campaigns aimed at a smaller set of accounts.
• Reaching out to higher-level prospects with customized messages, you improve chances of building deeper business relationships and extended value.
• This also ensures the potential for higher revenue and solid ROI. Research by the Altera Group found that 97% of markers feel that ABM “has a somewhat higher or much higher ROI than standard marketing initiatives.”

According to SeriousDecisions, there has been a 21% increase in the number of companies that have a full-account based marketing program in place. Also, more than 70% of B2B companies have focused on boosting their ABM programs.

You should be doing the same.

To learn more, go to our whitepaper page and download our paper “5 Benefits of Account-Based Marketing.”

To find out how Bython can help you set up and launch ABM campaigns and meet your marketing and sales goals, contact us today.